CHICAGO (AP)  It was a chaotic scene: Hundreds of screaming people stumbling down the darkened stairs of an illegally operated nightclub, gasping for air and stepping on bodies, only to find themselves trapped at the bottom trying to escape through a single exit.

Community members pray outside the Epitome night club Monday.

By John Zich, AFP

At least 21 people were killed and 57 injured in the stampede early Monday at the crowded E2 nightclub, authorities said. There were reports that as many as 500 people were crammed into the second-floor club when someone sprayed Mace or pepper spray to quell a fight about 2 a.m.

A judge ordered the owners to close their second-floor club last July because of safety violations, including failure to provide enough exits, city officials said Monday. A judge had denied a request by the owners to reopen.

DEADLY PANIC

The melee marks one of the nation's deadliest stampedes:

December 1991: Nine young people were crushed to death in a gymnasium stairwell while awaiting a celebrity basketball game in New York. Decemeber 1979: 11 people were killed in Cincinnati in a crush to get into a concert by The Who.

"The owner knows damn well that he is not to open that second-floor facility," said Fire Commissioner James Joyce. City officials said they plan to go to court as early as Tuesday to seek criminal contempt charges against the owner.

Witnesses described a frenzied scene of some people trying to climb through the ceiling, while others were trampled in the frantic rush for an exit, their faces and bodies flattened against the glass front door.

Some people fainted on the club floor; others were coughing and crying, gagging and blindly groping for any way out.

"People were being trapped underneath you ... so we're actually standing on people's heads and we didn't even know it," said Amishoov Blackwell, a 30-year-old patron. "It was just bodies laying everywhere."

Blackwell said one man crushed between two people told him, '"I can't breathe! I want you to hold my hand, man. If I don't make it, tell my mom that I love her!' He just basically collapsed."

Some witnesses reported that the lights were cut in the stairwell.

On Monday afternoon, Joyce backed off earlier statements that firefighters had used sledgehammers and pry bars to open other doors in the half-block-long building.

Larry Langford, a fire department spokesman, said one door was locked and another was blocked by laundry bags or other items from the first-floor Epitome restaurant.

While that would be in violation of city fire codes, it apparently didn't contribute to the deaths, as officials said the crowd surged down a single front exit in the pandemonium.

Joyce also scaled down the number of people in the club to about 500; earlier, the fire department had estimated as many as 1,500 people were on the second floor.

Joyce said that fire department inspectors visited the first-floor restaurant, known as Epitome, in October, but did not visit the second-floor nightclub, known as E2, because they had no reason to suspect it was open.

But the club — which was frequented by professional athletes and entertainers — has been advertised on the Internet and featured in current nightlife listings.

Police Superintendent Terry Hillard said investigators were trying to sort out conflicting stories about the source of the Mace or pepper spray and obtain videotape from inside the club. Witnesses said the spray may have come from the club's security guards trying to break up a fight between at least two women.

"Lives were tragically and senselessly lost, pinned down by a stampeding crowd," Hillard said.

"We will get to the bottom of this," he said. "Right now our investigation is at full tilt."

Friends and family of missing patrons flocked to the morgue Monday afternoon, searching for information and holding out hope that their loved ones were still alive.

"I just can't understand it," said Herschel Blake, who was looking for his 22-year-old grandson, Michael. "His mother called me and said, "Your grandson is dead. The door was locked. There was only one way out of the place.'"

Witnesses said some people were stomped on; many victims suffered crushing chest and head injuries. By Monday evening only seven of the injured remained hospitalized. Most of the dead were in their 20s or early 30s. At least nine died from multiple trauma and four from cardiac arrest, authorities said.

Water and ice were passed to some of those trapped as rescuers struggled to pull them from the building.

"You could see a mound of people," said Cory Thomas, 33, who went to the club to pick up two friends. "People were stacking on top of each other, screaming and gagging, I guess from the pepper spray. The door got blocked because there were too many people stacked up against it."

"I saw them taking out a pregnant woman," Thomas said. "She was in bad shape. I saw at least 10 lifeless bodies."

The president of a Chicago entertainment agency that has booked acts at the club said access to the building was unsafe for the number of people reported to be there early Monday.

"The doorway was obviously inadequate for an emergency," said Ron Onesti of Onesti Entertainment Co. "When the place is filled to capacity, the doorway is very thin."

Photographs on Onesti's Web site depict packed crowds at the nightclub. Onesti maintained that his agency had nothing to do with managing the club and hadn't had any dealings involving it in about a year.

The club is located in the Near South Side, a commercial district near the McCormick Place convention center.

The stampede was one of the nation's deadliest.

In December 1991, nine young people were crushed to death in a gymnasium stairwell while awaiting a celebrity basketball game in New York.

In December 1979, 11 people were killed in Cincinnati in a crush to get into a concert by The Who.

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